Poet Bios

Eric Ahlberg is the Technical Director at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center and Editor of the Venice Beachhead, a free community newspaper in Venice.

Taz Ahmed is a political strategist, storyteller, and artist based in Los Angeles. She creates at the intersection of counternarratives and culture-shifting as a South Asian American Muslim 2nd-gen woman. She’s turned out over 500,000 Asian American voters, recorded her #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast at the White House and makes #MuslimVDay cards annually. Her essays are published in the anthologies Pretty Bitches, Whiter, Good Girls Marry Doctors, Love Inshallah, and numerous online publications. In Spring 2019 she was UCLA’s Activist-in-Residence at the Institute on Inequality and Democracy and in 2016 received an award from President Obama’s White House as a Champion of Change in Art and Storytelling.

Will Alexander, born in 1948 in Los Angeles, Will Alexander is a poet, novelist, playwright, philosopher, visual artist, and musician. He has published over two dozen books in a variety of genres and has earned many honors and awards including a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry. He has also exhibited his artwork in group and solo shows. His work is known for its visionary, oracular surrealism and the influence of Negritude. Among his publications are Refractive Africa (New Directions, 2021/Granta, 2022), which was named a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and won the California Book Award for Poetry, The Combustion Cycle (Roof, 2021), Across the Vapor Gulf (New Directions, 2017), and The Sri Lankan Loxodrome (New Directions, 2009). His book Compression & Purity (2011) was volume five in the City Lights Spotlight Poetry Series. He is currently the poet-in-residence at Beyond Baroque in Venice, California. He has lived his entire life in Los Angeles.

Giovan Alonzi's writing has appeared in 7x7.la, Entropy, PANK, VOLT, The Believer, & Full Stop. At CalArts, where he completed his MFA in Creative Writing, his thesis was awarded the Emi Kuriyama Memorial Thesis Award & he was named a 2018 REEF resident.

Lisa Alvarez born and raised in Los Angeles, has worked with many peace, justice, and civil rights campaigns. She teaches writing at Irvine Valley College, where she codirects the campus Puente Program and codirects the summer writer’s workshops at the Community of Writers in Olympic Valley, California. As a widely published author, her work may be found in in About Place Journal, Air/Light, Anacapa Review, Citric Acid, Faultline, Huizache, Santa Monica Review, So It Goes, and various anthologies.

Molly Bendall is the author of six collections of poetry, including Watchful from Omnidawn Press and Under the Quick from Parlor Press. Her new collection Turncoat has just appeared from Omnidawn. Her chapbook of translations of the Egyptian-French poet Joyce Mansour came out from Toad Press (2022). Her poems have appeared in anthologies, such as American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology, Satellite Convulsions: Poems from Tin House, and Wide Awake Los Angeles. She teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California. www.mollybendall.com

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and author of Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press) and Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, Bermejo's poetry and essays can be found at Acentos Review, Huizache, LA Review of Books, The Offing, [Pank], Santa Fe Writers Project, and other journals. Her poem “Battlegrounds” was featured at Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, On Being’s Poetry Unbound, and the anthology, Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (W.W. Norton).She teaches poetry and creative writing with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension and is the director of Women Who Submit.

bridgette bianca is a poet and professor from South Central Los Angeles. Her first book of poetry, be/trouble, was released by Writ Large Projects in 2020 and is now in its second edition. be/trouble was listed as one of Bookriot’s 9 Poetry Books That Capture The Black Experience and L.A. Taco Book Guide’s 32 L.A.-Centered Books. When she is not reading her work, she hosts workshops and other events around the city. Recently, she joined forces with poet, artist, and activist GusTavo Guerra Vasquez to form the literary curating team South Central Spits Fire. Find her online at bridgettebianca.com.

Michelle Bitting was short-listed for the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize, the 2021 Fish Poetry Contest judged by Billy Collins, and a finalist for the 2021 Coniston Prize. She won the 2018 Fischer Poetry Prize, Quarter After Eight’s 2018 Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest, and a fourth collection of poetry, Broken Kingdom won the 2018 Catamaran Prize and was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best of 2018. In 2021, her manuscript Nightmares & Miracles won the Wilder Prize, a starred Kirkus Review, and is published by Two Sylvias Press in April, 2022. She has poems published in The American Poetry Review, Narrative, The Los Angeles Review, Rattle, Vinyl Poetry, The Paris-American, Love's Executive Order, The Raleigh Review, Plume, Tupelo Quarterly, and others.

Laurel Ann Bogen Born March 27, 1950, in Los Angeles, CA; daughter of Max Martin (a high school teacher and coach) and Helen Marguerite (an office manager; maiden name, Ramsay) Bogen. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: University of Southern California, B.A., 1971; M.A., 2001. Politics: Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Theater and performance, cooking, jewelry-making, art.

Cynthia Alessandra Briano is Director of the Rapp Saloon Reading Series and Founder of Love On Demand Global. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Southeast L.A., and at 14, attended boarding school in Massachusetts. She earned a B.A. from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and a Master in Fine Arts in Poetry from UC Riverside. Cynthia teaches at Cal. State University Fullerton in the African American Studies Department as part of the Ethnic Studies Program. She has been recipient of the Lois Morrell & J. Russell Hayes Poetry Prize and finalist in the James Hearst Poetry Prize.

Oxfam Ambassador Shonda Buchanan is the author of The Lost Songs of Nina Simone (May 2025) and the award-winning memoir Black Indian, chosen by PBS NewsHour as a “Top 20 books to read to learn about institutional racism.” Associate Professor in the Department of English at Western Michigan University and faculty in Alma College's MFA Program in Creative Writing, Shonda has published in The Mississippi Review, Tab Review, Red Ink Review, the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, Indian Country Today, Capital & Main, Westways Magazine, Sisters of AARP and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a Best of the Net nominee and a California Arts Council Established Artist Fellow, Shonda is a USC Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities Fellow and a City of Los Angeles (COLA) Department of Cultural Affairs Master Artist Fellow. An English Language Specialist with the Department of State and PEN Emerging Voices Fellow and Mentor, Shonda’s works-in-progress are America's Bloodflowers and Children of the Mixed Blood Trail. For more information, visit www.shondabuchanan.com.

Former Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America, final judge for the PEN’s “Best of the West” award, the Kate & Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards, and the Laurel Prize for environmental writing, Elena Karina Byrne works as a freelance editor, screenwriter, lecturer, interdisciplinary events curator, and Programming Consultant and Poetry Stage Manager for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Pushcart Prize recipient and Best American Poetry contributor, her five poetry collections include No Don’t (What Books Press, 2020) and MASQUE (If This Makes You Nervous (Omnidawn, 2021). Forthcoming works include her essay collection, Voyeur Hour: Poetry Art, Film, & Desire.

Rhiannon Cielos Chavez is a writer and Development and Operations Assistant at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Foundation.

Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam shortly after the Việt Nam War and grew up in Pasadena and Altadena, California on unceded Tongva Territory. Altadena Poet Laureate, Editor-in-Chief from 2018 to 2020 and Pasadena Rose Poet since 2016, Teresa Mei Chuc is the author of three books of poetry, Invisible Light (Many Voices Press, 2018), Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing, 2014) and Red Thread (Fithian Press, 2012). Her recent poetry chapbook, Incidental Takes, was published by Hummingbird Press in 2023. Teresa is a public school English teacher in Los Angeles in her twentieth year teaching. Teresa sits on the Beyond Baroque Board of Trustees (Secretary) and is the Youth Engagement Committee Chair. Teresa also sits on the Board of Directors for the San Gabriel Valley Community Land Trust.

Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual writer, educator, cultural commentator, and rezandera from Venezuela. She is the author of two books, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir, 2017. And Uprising / Alzamiento, forthcoming with Finishing Line Press, June 2021

Pam Concepcion is a multimedia artist: a poet, an aspiring screenwriter, a digital collage artist, and a video editor. She is born and raised in Metro Manila, Philippines, where she played softball, wrote poetry, and earned her Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering with a minor in New Media and Communication. In 2023, she moved to South Pasadena, California, to live with her family. Since then, she has been active in the poetry open mic scene around LA county. She has featured at several mics such as Serpentine and Planting Poets at the North Figueroa Bookshop, LA Poets Society events at the Melrose Trading Post, The Libros Lincoln Heights, SaLa Salo at Obet & Del's, and La Palabra at Avenue 50 Studio. She is also active in Sunday Jump, Anansi Writer's Workshop, and around social media.

Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in many standards, including Poetry, The Nation, Best American Poetry, Tin House, Ploughshares, and Poem-a-Day. A popular performer, Brendan has presented his work to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s All Things Considered, TED ED, numerous podcasts, and YouTube. He currently teaches at the Windward School, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Midnight Mission. Since 2017 he has been developing workshops for writer living with Aphasia and Traumatic Brain Injuries. His fifth collection of poems, ‘The Opposites Game,’ is forthcoming 2026 from Red Hen Press.

Lynda V. E. Crawford was born and raised in Barbados and lives in the United States. Both homes sway her writing. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Crawford writes to sneak behind eyes, blow through ears, and stretch voices. She's been a journalist, copywriter, website manager, and email marketer. Poetry won’t let go. Her work has appeared in national and international journals including Prairie Schooner, ArtsEtc Barbados, The Caribbean Writer, The Galway Review, The Bookends Review, Moonstone Arts Center anthologies (various), California Quarterly, and Exposition Review. Crawford studied at The University of Connecticut (Bachelors) and Long Island University (Masters) where she also earned a United Nations Graduate Certificate. She is the author of the poetry collection “Washing Water” (World Stage Press, October 2024).

Amy Elisabeth Davis grew up in a corner of New York City from which she could see many trees and the Hudson River. She has lived in LA for almost half a century. A historian as well as a poet, she taught at Purdue University and UCLA. The author of Leaving the Grid, which will be released by What Books Press in October 2026, she has published poetry in a range of journals and held a writing residency for a month at Yefe Nof in 2018.

Jose Hernandez Diaz is a Mexican American writer, editor, and teacher. The author of Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024), and The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020), he is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellow. Diaz lives in Norwalk, California.

Kim Dower, born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is the former City Poet Laureate for West Hollywood, California. Author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including the Los Angeles Times bestseller and 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award finalist, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom­

Zoe Edeskuty is the founder of The Underground online literary journal at Chapman University. She is the current Development Intern at Beyond Baroque.

Barbara Fant is a celebrated performer, award winning poet, and author of Joy In The Belly of a Riot, Paint, Inside Out and Mouths of Garden. Barbara was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio. At age fifteen she tragically lost her mother. “I became an angry teenager. I was mad at the world. I even stopped praying, but I began to write. Poetry became my way of communication, my way of processing... it became my way to pray.”

Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, and other esteemed artists. He is a featured performer in the film What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry has been widely published, and his spoken word videos have appeared in international film festivals. He is the author of two poetry collections and the novel New Jersey Me. Ferguson is the lead editor of an anthology of CA poets entitled Beat Not Beat, and his third poetry collection, Somewhere, a Playground, was recently released by Moon Tide Press.

Sesshu Foster taught literature and composition in East Los Angeles for thirty years, and creative writing at Pomona College, California Institute of the Arts, Naropa University, University of California at Santa Cruz, and other colleges and universities. Winner of two American Book Awards, his latest books are the novel, ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines (with artist Arturo Ernesto Romo), and a book of poems, City of the Future, which won the 2019 CLMP Firecracker Award.

Sara Ellen Fowler is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles, CA. Her writing has appeared in The Offing, X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal, Interim, and Gigantic Sequins, among others. Her work has been supported by the Frost Place Conference on Poetry, HomeSchool--Claremont, and the Community of Writers. Sara holds a BFA in sculpture from Art Center College of Design and an MFA in poetry from the University of California, Riverside. In 2023, she was awarded a California Arts Council Individual Fellowship Award administered by Los Angeles Performance Practice for Los Angeles County. Her first book, Two Signatures, was selected by Joan Naviyuk Kane for the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry in 2023 and will be published by the University of Utah Press in 2024.

Alice Fulmer is a poetess and PhD student at UCSB in English. She studies medieval poetry and its contemporary intersections in gender, sexuality and disability. Her research ranges from Marie de France to Geoffrey Chaucer, with her poetics influenced by Dylan Thomas and Jericho Brown. Her debut poetry collection Faunalia came out in 2023 on Sul Books and a sophomore poetry MS is freshly finished.

Nikolai Garcia has been invited to read his poems at San Francisco’s Flor Y Canto literary festival, Voices of California 2023 in Sacramento, and Lit Hop Fresno. His first chapbook, Nuclear Shadows of Palm Trees, was published by DSTL Arts in 2019. His second chapbook, All the Sad Music, was published in 2025.

Ramón García’s new book is Strange Signatures (Walton Well Press, 2025). He is the author of two books of poetry The Chronicles (Red Hen Press, 2015) and Other Countries (What Books Press, 2010), a monograph on the artist Ricardo Valverde (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) and a chapbook Strays (Foundlings Press, 2021). His poetry has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including circulo de poesía, the Best American Poetry anthology, The Los Angeles Review, Gulf Coast and Plume.

Maestro Gamin began developing his poetry sometime in 2009/2010 after attending Vibrations writer's group. He soon began attending open mics across the southern Los Angeles and Downtown areas, such as Lost Souls Cafe, The Monday Speakeasy, World Stage, DPL, Natural High (flight school), Our Mic, and Freedom of Speech Thursdays. He lives and rides his bike in Los Angeles.

Amy Gerstler's most recent book of poems is IS THIS MY FINAL FORM (Penguin Random House, April, 2025). Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker, The Atlantic Magazine and Paris Review. In 2019, she received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts CD Wright Grant. In 2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her book Dearest Creature (Penguin, 2009) was named a New York Times Notable Book, and was short listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. In addition to poetry she writes plays, journalism and art criticism.

Jeffrey Graham published his poetry collection "Elegy to a Surveyor" in 2019, and is working on a follow-up book. It is Graham’s wish that his poems stir public interest at the intersection of poetry, education, love, and politics. Graham was born and raised in New York City and moved to Los Angeles in 1989 following a stint teaching American Studies at Lund University in Sweden. He has been an avid student of American literature since an undergraduate at Brown University. After Georgetown Law Center and during his career as an attorney and real estate developer, Graham earned a Masters in English at Loyola Marymount University. While practicing law and writing, Graham has also been the director of a Waldorf school and a non-profit developer of thirty K-12 public schools in California. He is pleased to be joining Cummins and Ford for a second time reading at Beyond Baroque.

S.A. Griffin, the author of Pandemic Soul Music (Punk Hostage Press) is co-editor of Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press) and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Firecracker Award). Co-founder of The Lost Tribe and progenitor of The Carma Bums, in 2010 he went on a five-week, 11,000 mile Couch Surfing Across America Tour of Words with Elsie the Poetry Bomb, a 7 foot tall Vietnam era practice bomb converted into an art object filled with the sacred ashes of poets, cats, dogs, performance artists and over 900 poems from around the world in an effort to spread Elsie’s message that we must learn to disagree, or our Republic is lost. In 2012 S.A. was the first recipient of Beyond Baroque’s Distinguished Service. In 2015 UCLA acquired his archives as their first acquisition for their Punk Initiative. Vietnam era veteran of the USAF, husband, father and cat lover, he drives too fast, thinks too much and sleeps too little.

Cynthia Guardado (she/her/hers) is a Los-Angeles born Central American Indigenous queer poet from the region of El Salvador. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Cenizas, (University of Arizona Press 2022) and ENDEAVOR, (World Stage Press 2017). She was the winter of Concurso Binacional De Poesía Pellicer-Frost in 2017 (México) and Cenizas was a finalist for the National Poetry Series in 2019. Currently, she’s a tenured professor at Fullerton College.

Sonia Guiñansaca is an international award-winning poet, cultural organizer, and social justice activist. Born in Ecuador, they migrated to the U.S at the age of 5 to reunite with their parents in NYC. They emerged as a national leader in the migrant artistic and political communities where they coordinated and participated in groundbreaking civil disobedience actions.

Larkin Maureen Higgins is a poet/artist/professor emerita whose poetic and hybrid works can be found in Diagram, Notre Dame Review, Eleven Eleven, Chant de la Sirène Journal, Otoliths, elsewhere. Mindmade Books published her Of Traverse and Template (poems and logographic drawings). With Dusie, she has two poetry chapbooks: Of Materials, Implements and c o m b - i n g m i n e - i n g s , plus the broadside “Soil Culture, Frankenstein—Grafted.” Additionally, her poems have been anthologized by University of Iowa Press and Tebot Bach. Higgins’ visual poetry is included in the Avant Writing Collection/The Ohio State University Libraries and was exhibited at Counterpath Gallery (Denver), Otis College of Art & Design, others. Over the years, she has exhibited her artist’s books/objects while also creating text-driven performance art for venues such as Highways Performance Space, Counterpath, and BC Space.

Gedda Ilves was born in the city of Harbin, N. China in 1923. During WW II she lived in Shanghai, then traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil via South Africa. She landed in Los Angeles, California in 1951. Gedda has published five collections of poetry, including most recently 'As Butterfly to a River'. In 2006, she received the Editor's Choice Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry from Poetry.com and the International Library of Poetry. She is the recipient of awards from Paris, London, Los Angeles Book Festivals and the Eric Hoffer Awards. Her poems appeared in literary journals and four anthologies. Gedda's first four books of poetry are catalogued in the Los Angeles Central Library. Her memoir: "Stranger's Journey" is coming out this year.

Arthur Kayzakian is the finalist for the 2024 Kate Tufts Award, and the winner of the 2021 inaugural Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series for his collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings (Black Lawrence Press, 2023), which was also selected as a finalist for the 2021 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. He is the recipient of the 2023 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a founding member and serves as the Poetry Chair for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His work has appeared in several publications, including The Adroit Journal, Chicago Review, Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, among other journals.

Karen Kevorkian is a poet from San Antonio, TX. She studied at the Universities of Texas, Virginia, and Utah. She edited and directed the production of exhibition catalogues for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She has received fellowships from the Wurlitzer, Ucross, Djerassi, and Millay foundations and MacDowell. Kevorkian taught in the creative writing program at the University of Virginia and currently teaches creative writing in the English department at UCLA. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in many journals including Fiction International, Poetry International, Quarterly West, Witness Volt, Massachusetts Review, and more.

Tom Laichas is author of three books of poetry, most recently Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Times, The Moth (Ireland), the Irish Times, Breakwater, Aesthetica (UK), Blue Unicorn, Main Street Rag, Stand (UK), The High Window Review (UK), and elsewhere. He has won poetry competitions from Jabberwock Review, Puerto del Sol, and Prime 53, and has been shortlisted in competitions sponsored by The Moth (Ireland), Aesthetica, Arts & Letters, New Letters and Gunpowder Press. He lives with his family in Venice, California.

Mylo Lam is a writer born in Vietnam, raised in Los Angeles, and based out of Washington DC. He and his family are refugees of Cambodia. Mylo’s poetry has been published in Barrelhouse, The Coachella Review, and elsewhere. His multimedia work won Palette Poetry’s Brush & Lyre Prize, and he was a 2019 Sesame Writers’ Room fellow.

Frank Lutz is a poet with an understated narrative writing style. He attended universities in France, Italy, and Germany; and graduated from UCLA, Summa Cum Laude with his wife, Linda. He possesses a Vatican passport and is called Dottore Lutz in the Vatican Secret Archives. Frank also has a commercial pilot's license, and anFAA pilot instructor certificates. He and Linda married twice and were together for 55 years.

Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana and now resides in Long Beach, California. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, an MFA in poetry from Butler University, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Testify (2017) and Trouble Funk (2023). He is an assistant professor of English at Whittier College and teaches at Spalding University’s low-res MFA program.

Holaday Mason is author of six collections—Towards the Forest, Dissolve, (New Rivers Press) The Red Bowl: A Fable in Poems,(Red Hen Press) The “ She” Series: A Venice Correspondence (What Books Press, with Sarah Maclay), The Weaver’s Body (Tebot Bach Press), As If Scattered ( Giant Claw Press) & two chapbooks—Interlude & Light Spilling From its Own Cup. Nominated for several Pushcarts, widely published, she served as co-editor for Beyond Baroque’s anthology Echo 681 where she sometimes leads writing workshops. Currently she is poetry editor for online art & poetry magazine, Furious Pure. www.holadaymason.com holadaymasonphotography.com & Instagram @ holadaymasonphotography

Nikki Ochoa is a poet, sculptor, and sound artist. She is an ancient baby from Kudzu covered forests, painted deserts, and glistening oceans. Her practice is rooted in a deep commitment to experimenting with diverse forms, to confront and resist dominant cultural paradigms while playing with language, sound, expectation, and space. Nikki explores loving irreverence through abstracted poetic narratives. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from UCLA and an MFA in Experimental Sound Practices + Creative Writing from CalArts.

Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of A Tinderbox in Three Acts (2022) from BOA Editions, Fire Is Not a Country (2021) and Salvage (2017) from Northwestern University Press, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (2016) from Thread Makes Blanket Press. A recipient of the Amy Clampitt Residency, Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, and the Leeway Transformation Award, her writing appears in The Atlantic, POETRY, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, Hyperallergic, Guernica, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her experimental poem, Future Revisions, was exhibited at the Rail Park billboard in Philadelphia in summer 2021. An alumnus of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, she has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, New Mexico State University and Voices of Our Nations (VONA). She is originally from Bali, Indonesia.

Jose Oseguera is the author of the poetry collection The Milk of Your Blood and This House is Only a Nest. His poems have appeared in Chautauqua, Sonora Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Catamaran. He was the recipient of the Nancy Dew Taylor Award and has been nominated for Best of the Net, Pushcart and Forward Prizes.

Anika Paris is a recording artist, composer and author for television, theatre and film. She can be heard in films such as Bounce, Wise Girls, The Calling, Sex and The City, and on TV Series See Jane Date, Love Comes Softly, Anthony Bourdain, So You Think You Can Dance, The Ellen Show, The Bachelor and more.

Luis Antonio Pichardo is a first-generation Mexican-American Poet/Artist and the Founder/Executive Director of DSTL Arts, a nonprofit arts mentorship organization that inspires, teaches, and hires emerging artists from underserved communities, primarily serving the communities of South and East Los Angeles. As the eldest son of a Mexican immigrant father and a Chicana mother, he is heavily influenced by his upbringing, traveling between Southern CA and México. As a bicultural and bilingual poet/artist, Luis crafts art and poetry that explores the intersectionality of being Latin American, working-class, and from communities where urban, suburban, and rural experiences commingle to form his Pan-American identity.

Meghann Plunkett writes television (Station 19, Rebel) and various development projects including adapting the novel “First Lie Wins” for the screen. She also served as a Poetry Reader for The New Yorker from 2018-2020. She is the recipient of the 2017 Missouri Review’s Editors’ Prize as well as the 2017 Third Coast Poetry Prize. She was a finalist for Narrative Magazine’s 30 Below Contest, The North American Review’s Hearst Poetry Prize and Nimrod‘s Pablo Neruda Prize. She has been recognized by the Academy of American Poets in both 2016 and 2017. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, Pleiades, Rattle, Washington Square Review and Poets.org, among others. Her chapbook What We Did to Her Made the Water Rise won the Fall 2023 Black River Chapbook Competition and is forthcoming in February 2025.

Darby Price was born and raised in Southeast Louisiana, a place that influences much of her work. She earned her BA at Florida State University and her MFA at George Mason University, where she was a Heritage Fellow and the Poetry Editor for Phoebe. Her poetry has appeared in No Contact, Beloit Poetry Journal, RHINO, Redivider, and Zócalo Public Square, among others. Her memoir All The Lands We Inherit was published by Black Lawrence Press.

David Quiroz, his brother Carlos, and his mother traveled to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, in 1995. After several years in the United States, he was enrolled in the charter school system known today as Vaughn Next Century Learning Center. He is a product of the afterschool program system, The Boys and Girls Club of San Fernando Valley, and later completed his bachelor's degree at California State University, Northridge. After obtaining a bachelor’s in English subject matter, David began teaching in 2019, pursuing a master's degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing. He has served as a public-school middle school instructor, teaching seventh-grade English at PUC Nueva Esperanza Charter Academy for five years. As an undocumented first-generation American and first-generation college graduate, David was reenergized after each political battle against undocumented people. Upon receiving DACA, David utilized every opportunity afforded to him. Dreamer Paradise, his first book, tells the story of one dreamer, as the DACA/immigrant experience is not universal.

Amy Raasch is a Los Angeles-based writer, musician, actor, and media installation artist. Favorite projects include singer-songwriter album Girls Get Cold, named one of L.A. Weekly’s Best of the Year; animated film Cat Bird Coyote, and theatrical multimedia show The Animal Monologues. Recent literary selections include Sonora Review NOISE Poetry Contest Winner and 2025 Jack McCarthy Book Prize (Write Bloody Publishing), Florida Review Editor’s Award, and 2024 Trio Award (Trio House Press) Finalist. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. She writes about what haunts us. amyraasch.com

Annie Reiner is a poet, painter, playwright and psychoanalyst who has written five books of poems, a book of short stories, several plays, and six children’s books which she also illustrated. Dr. Reiner is also the author of five books on psychoanalysis, including her just published book, The Poetry, Art and Science of Psychoanalysis in Bion’s ‘O’ (2025), in which she brings together her diverse but related endeavors.

Luivette Resto, a mother, teacher, poet, and Wonder Woman fanatic, was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx. Her two books of poetry Unfinished Portrait and Ascension have been published by Tía Chucha Press. Some of her latest work can be found on the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center website, Bozalta, Spillway, and North American Review. This is her third collection of poetry and first publication with FlowerSong Press. She lives in the San Gabriel Valley with her three children aka her revolutionaries.

Ivan Salinas is a poet hailing from Mexico City, based in the 818. He is the co-editor of Drifter Zine and Programs Manager at Beyond Baroque.

Sehba Sarwar’s work tackles displacement, migration, and women’s issues. A second edition of her novel, Black Wings, was published by Veliz Books (2019), while her essays, short stories, and poems have appeared in Asia: Magazine of Asian Literature, New York Times, Callaloo, LA Times and elsewhere. Born and raised in an activist home in Karachi, Pakistan, Sarwar is the recipient of artist awards through the Academy of American Poets, LA’s Department of Cultural Affairs, Pasadena’s Cultural Affairs Division, Mid-America Arts Alliance amidst others. Her papers are archived at the University of Houston, and she serves as Altadena Co-Poet Laureate (2024-26).

Anthony Seidman is a poet translator from the San Fernando Valley. His poems, translations, articles and reviews have appeared in such journals and anthologies as New American Writing, Plume, Poetry International, Los Angeles Review of Books, World Literature Today, Huizache, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poets & Writers, Los Angeles Times, as well as The Ecopoetry Anthology and The Serpent and the Fire: Poetries from the Americas. His most recent collections are That Beast in the Mirror (Black Herald Press, London/Chartres) a bilingual selection of his poetry with translations into French by Blandine Longre, and The End of the World Came to my Neighborhood (Spuyten Duyvil, New York), translations from the Spanish of the Dominican poet, Frank Báez.

Laura Sermeño was born in Montebello, CA, raised and educated in Sur El Monte, (UCLA matriculated), educated by her people—from the classrooms to the streets. In 2012, she began auditioning for spoken word performances. In 2015, she was accepted into the Voices of our Nation's (VONA) Southern California Regional Workshop, focusing on “Poetry as Documentary.” She published her first full-length poetry collection, born to cry and Loving You Like a Mexican.

Amy Shimshon-Santo is a writer, educator, and culture maker who believes that creativity is a powerful tool for personal and social transformation. She was born on Tovaangar land in current day Los Angeles, and has immediate family in the Southwest, the Middle East, and South America. Amy is the author of Random Experiments in Bioluminescence (Flowersong Press, 2024), Catastrophic Molting (Flowersong Press, 2022), Even the Milky Way is Undocumented (Unsolicited Press, 2020), the limited edition chapbook Endless Bowls of Sky (Placeholder Press, 2020).

Karo Ska is a Bengali-Polish gender-fluid writer living on unceded Tongva land. Anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian, they find joy where they can. Their work has been supported by DSTL Arts, Community Literature Initative, Anaphora Arts, California Arts Council and Tin House Summer Workshop. Author of loving my salt-drenched bones (World Stage Press, 2022), they are currently working on a memoir and a novel.

Jack Skelley is author of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker (Semiotext(e)). He also authored Interstellar Theme Park (BlazeVOX books), Dennis Wilson and Charlie Manson (Fred & Barney Press), and Monsters (Little Caesar Press). Jack is songwriter/guitarist for psychedelic surf band Lawndale. He lives in Los Angeles.

Brian Sonia-Wallace (RENT Poet) builds bridges between people with poetry, and has written poems for over 10,000 strangers across the country based on their stories, in residence with Amtrak Trains, the Mall of America, the National Parks, WeHo Pride, and even Google. Brian is the author of The Poetry of Strangers and the 4th Poet Laureate of the City of West Hollywood, with work published in The Guardian, Rolling Stone and American Poets.

Christopher Soto (b. 1991) is a writer based in Los Angeles, California. His debut poetry collection, Diaries of a Terrorist, was published by Copper Canyon Press. This collection demands the abolition of policing and human caging. In 2022, he was honored with Them’s Now Award in Literature for representing the cutting edge of queer culture. He was also honored as part of Out100, which celebrates the year’s most impactful and influential LGBTQ+ people. Boston Globe named his debut one of the best books of 2022.

David St. John’s Prayer for my daughter, is his latest poetry collection. St. John's poetry has been described by Robert Haas in the L.A. Times as a cross between late nineteeth-century symbolist lushness and the intensity and wistfulness of 60s European films.

Brian Kim Stefans is a Poet, digital artist, professor at UCLA, creator of http://arras.net

Bri Stokes was born and raised in Los Angeles, on unceded Tongva land. Her writing has appeared in BuzzFeed, Epiphany, the Northridge Review, and elsewhere. She served as Managing Editor of Issue 04 of SKEW Magazine. She is a poetry and fiction reader for Epiphany, a 2024 Voodoonauts Fellow, and a 2024 Resident with The Seventh Wave Magazine. Adam Stutz

Lynne Thompson was the 4th Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles. The daughter of Caribbean immigrants, her poetry collections include Beg No Pardon (2007), winner of the Perugia Press Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award; Start With A Small Guitar (2013), from What Books Press; and Fretwork (2019), winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. Thompson’s honors include the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award (poetry) and the Stephen Dunn Prize for Poetry as well as fellowships from the City of Los Angeles, Vermont Studio Center, and the Summer Literary Series in Kenya.

Daniel Tiffany is a poet and theorist based in Los Angeles and Berlin. Five volumes of his scholarship have been published by presses such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Chicago. Tiffany’s critical work is recognized for its innovative approaches to the field of poetry and poetics. Tiffany is the author of six collections of poetry from presses including Action Books and Omnidawn.

David Trinidad's most recent books are New Playlist (Pitt Poetry Series, 2025), Hollywood Cemetery (Green Linden Press, 2025), and Sleeping with Bashō (BlazeVOX [books], 2024). He lives in Los Angeles.

Gloria Vando Hickok has enriched the Kansas City area literary community since moving to Johnson County in 1980. She founded Helicon Nine, a nationally recognized women’s arts magazine, which then became a press, Helicon Nine Editions. In addition, she and her husband Bill Hickok co -founded The Writers Place, a literary arts center in Kansas City, Missouri. She combines such service with writing award-winning books. Vando is a Nuyorican: a person of Puerto Rican heritage born in New York City. She layers this cultural perspective through her verses. Most of her poems begin with autobiographical moments, which then expand into global perspectives.

jimmy vega is the child of mexican immigrants, a chicano los angeles poet, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. vega is the author of zirconium ash (what books press, 2025). he holds a ba from ucla in english and an mfa in creative writing from calarts. vega's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in diode, dunce codex, maintenant, andelsewhere. vega is currently the interim executive director of beyond baroque literary / arts center. he lives and works in los angeles. more @jimmyyvega or jimmy-vega.com.

LA native, Pam Ward recently released her poetry anthology, “BETWEEN GOOD MEN & NO MAN AT ALL,” World Stage Press.2024. She is also the author of two novels, “WANT SOME GET SOME,” and “BAD GIRLS BURN SLOW,” Kensington, a UCLA graduate, California Arts Council Fellow, Pushcart Poetry Nominee and founding member of the Leimert Park Book Fair. Published in numerous publications, including Voices of Leimert Park, Renaissance Noir and the LA Times, Pam was honored by the LA Department of Cultural Affairs as a Trailblazer writer, 2025 and participated in the first literary Olympics in Paris, 2024.

Gail Wronsky, recipient of an Artists Fellowship from the California Arts Council, is the author of nine books of poetry, three coauthored collections of experimental poetry, and two books of translations of the poetry of Argentinean poet Alicia Partnoy. Newest titles include Mockingbird’s Proverbs; Born in a Barn on Venus, with artwork by renowned artist Gronk; Some Disenfranchised Evening, winner of the Swan Scythe Chapbook Prize, and Under the Capsized Boat We Fly: New & Selected Poems. She teaches creative writing at the Catholic Workers soup kitchen in downtown Los Angeles.

Mariano Zaro is the author of six previous books of poetry, most recently Decoding Sparrows (What Books Press, Los Angeles, CA) and Padre Tierra (Olifante, Zaragoza, Spain). His work has been featured in the anthologies Monster Verse (Penguin Random House), Poetry Goes to the Movies (Beyond Baroque Books), The Coiled Serpent (Tía Chucha Press, CA) and in several magazines in Spain, Mexico and the United States. His translations include Buda en llamas by Tony Barnstone and Cómo escribir una cancion de amor by Sholeh Wolpé. He is a professor of Spanish at Río Hondo Community College (Whittier, California). www.marianozaro.com